Death Becomes You

I apologize in advance for this slightly morbid post, but there are a couple of fantastic exhibits around New York with slightly morbid subject matter:

First up, the Discovery Times Square Exhibition Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs is on view right now. The show features artifacts from the tombs King Tut and several other 18th dynasty pharaohs. It will also feature mobs of tourists and a $27.50 entry fee, so you might want to check out:

Tutankhamun's Funeral, which is on view in the Met's Egyptian galleries until September. This show focuses largely on the objects and artifacts associated with mummification and Egyptian funeral ritual, as well as photographs and other materials from the Museum's excavation of the Valley of the Kings.

If you can't get enough Ancient Egypt, check out the Brooklyn Museum's Mummy Chamber, which includes tomb artifacts, an incredible Book of the Dead manuscript and a few actual mummies.

The Rubin Museum presents Remember that You Will Die: Death Across Cultures until early August. The exhibit showcases art works all revolving around the themes of death and the afterlife, and focuses specifically on the European Christian and Tibetan Buddhist religious traditions. The show explores the iconography of the skeleton, among other topics, and illustrates commonalities and differences between the two faiths as they approach death and dying.

The new show at the Museum of Arts and Design, Dead or Alive, features modern and contemporary art and design fashioned from organic, once-living things. Although many of the pieces are created from flora and fauna, several use decidedly creepier materials like bones and insects. (My personal favorite is Billie Grace Lynn's Mad Cow Motorcycle)


Image: Death and the Knight, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1538 (University of Kansas, Spencer Museum of Art 1994.013)

Contemporary art meets reality TV

I'm not sure if this is going to be great, or if Bravo's finally taken reality competition shows to the limit: Bravo is producing a new TV show that's basically the Project Runway of the contemporary art world. 13 finalists from all over the country will compete for a gallery show, a cash prize, and a national museum tour.

However, it is unclear exactly what format the show will take as far as challenges go. Will Bravo use a similar "quick-fire" challenge like on Top Chef? As Kennedy brilliantly asks: "Best postironic conceptual gambit in under a minute?" How will the show be received by "art world people"? So far, Simon de Pury of Phillips de Pury auction house has been revealed as a judge, and I'm really curious as to who else they're going to get. Will top galleries be represented? So many questions!

What do you guys think about the new art reality show?

In a total art-world turnaround, the Old Master paintings summer sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's did far better than expected, even beating out the dismal totals from the recent impressionist, modern, and contemporary sales.

Big-ticket items included a Willem Heda still life that went for 1.38 million pounds, a newly attributed Frans Hals, and Fra Bartolommeo's Madonna and Child. Could these auction results be evidence of a shift in popularity in favor of Old Master works and away from the modern and contemporary that's dominated the art scene of late? Given the current economic climate, collectors are increasingly careful with their purchases, and Old Masters tend to be a better, more solid investment than whatever is currently hot in the contemporary market.

Interestingly though, as Souren Melikian recently observed regarding the modern art sales, there seems to be a lack of quality art to go around at auctions lately, leading major houses to pad their catalogs. This last round of Old Masters included 19th century works and drawings. Apparently the rush to buy up the last of the "good art" is on.

(And for a little fun, check out these incredible modern "Old Masters")

St. Paul's Cathedral to Get Video Altarpieces

St. Paul's Cathedral, built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in London, is getting some very unique new altarpieces.

Multi-screen video installations by contemporary artist Bill Viola will be installed in the cathedral in 2011, and are expected to be a huge tourist draw, especially given that the Tate Modern is just across the river. The treasurer of the cathedral, Canon Warner, hopes that in the future St. Paul's will be able to host other contemporary art installations as well.

I'm interested in the progressive attitude and willingness to include new art in old places, but this feels more like a publicity stunt primarily to raise funds for the cathedral instead of an artistic statement. What do you think?

Art Links

-A new show of paintings by modernist Belgian artist James Ensor in the creatively titled James Ensor at MoMA.

-A show of objects from the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan at the Met, which was previously at the National Gallery in Washington. Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul is on through September.

-Sotheby's has done pretty well in the last few days, with solid modern and contemporary sales, with Picasso and Giacometti selling well at the modern sale and contemporary standbys Warhol and Calder selling well yesterday, though American art is not doing well at either house.

-LACMA, in a somewhat surprising but still totally predictable move, sold off their old master paintings at Sotheby's. I guess they didn't get the memo about older art being a consistently good investment.

-The new Acropolis Museum in Athens is awesome, which has sparked debate over who really owns the Elgin marbles, currently housed at the British Museum in London.

Art Meets Technology: Peter Greenaway

I'm always interested to see how technology interacts with traditional art, so when the Times reported on Peter Greenaway's exhibit at the Venice Biennale, which is a digitized film-esque version of Veronese's masterpiece, The Wedding at Cana, I was interested.

The traditionalist in me usually is opposed to contemporary artists reusing the work of the masters and billing it as their own, but Greenaway takes a more thoughtful approach (did anyone see the Cezanne wrapped in bubblewrap at the Philadephia show? Now that really boils my blood). First, the piece is being exhibited in the Benedictine refectory on San Giorgio Maggiore, where Veronese's original hung previously. I appreciate the sensitivity to a measure of historical accuracy.

The Wedding at Cana digital project is also one of a series, the 3rd of 9 entitled simply Nine Classical Paintings Revisited. I appreciate the lack of pretention that so often accompanies reused classical art. (Previous work includes digitizations of Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Da Vinci's The Last Supper.)

Greenaway plans to work his digital magic on another Renaissance piece, Michelangelo's The Last Judgment as well as on Picasso's Guernica, a Pollock, some Monet and a Seurat. It makes me wonder if art historians will react differently when Renaissance art is repurposed versus when Impressionist or abstract art is reused. What about the "old masters" makes them untouchable in the minds of art historians?

Greenaway's digitization project is unique to me in that it doesn't disrupt the spirit or impact of the original, but rather enhances it in many ways. It's a way of using technology that doesn't interrupt the original, but manipulates it slightly in a way that is still true to the color and visual dynamism of the original but dazzles all the same.


If you need a hit of more traditional Veronese, check out the exhibiton website for the Rivals in Renaissance Venice show at the MFA in Boston (I'm dying to see it!)

New Feature: Museum Shop Madness

As long as I can remember going to museums, I've loved the gift shops. Lately I've noticed museum gift shops stepping things up a bit and instead of being the random assortment of art-related key-chains, posters, and coasters at the end of a blockbuster exhibition (though of course, all those things are still available...who needs a coaster set of Monets?), they've become well, shops in their own right.

In this new feature, I'm just going to post things at online museum shops that happen to catch my eye, the wonderful, the weird, the colorful, and occasionally the useful. Enjoy!

First up, this fantastic Dual-Spout Chinese Porcelain-inspired teapot from the Met:











According to the item description: "Our teapot is based on an original made in China in the late 17th century containing two chambers, one for brewing tea and one for hot water; an ingenious and elegant form allowing a harmonious couple to enjoy different strengths of tea simultaneously." Cool. Buy it here.

Next, in the "slightly weird and creative" category, a book entitled When Pigasso Met Mootisse from the Morgan Library's store:








I think this is self-explanatory. Pick it up for the child in your life (or yourself, because you know you want it) here.

This next item, a carved wood necklace from the Art Institute of Chicago's store, is a piece of jewelry I'd actually wear, and very on-trend with this season's statement necklaces. As a bonus, it doesn't look too "museum-y" the way a lot of museum shop jewelry tends to:



Just think how amazing it would look with a plain t-shirt and a snappy blazer. It's even on sale for web orders only.

For the creative interior designer, MoMA's design shop always has a selection of weirdly beautiful things you never knew you even wanted, like this vaguely mushroom-cloud shaped Nesso Table Lamp:











Based on the lamp in MoMA's collection by Giancarlo Mattioli, if you ever wanted a lamp made from injection molded ABS thermoplastic, this is the lamp you've been looking for, if you've got an extra $375 ($337.50 for MoMA members) on hand.

Finally, if you really want to break the bank on a unique look for your living room, try the Gehry Easy Chair from the Philadelphia Museum of Art's store:














For a mere $730, you could own this. Or complete your living room set with matching molded sofa, bench, left, right and 3-sided twist cubes, an easy chair and a coffee table. Gehry-riffic!


So what do you think? Would you buy any of this stuff? What are your favorite museum gift shops?

Tim Burton at MoMA

In what is possibly the coolest retrospective ever planned, Tim Burton will be featured at MoMA beginning November 22nd, later this year.

The show will feature, among other things, drawings, costumes, and puppets, mostly from his various film projects. It will also include "artifacts" from Burton's college film projects, early career, and unrealized projects. Best of all, the exhibition will be accompanied by a film series.

For other happenings at MoMA, check out this weirdly difficult to understand exhibition calendar.

Another Art History Mystery

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has just acquired a painting believed to be by a young Michelangelo.

The Torment of St. Anthony, an easel painting, was recently studied in-depth by Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He believes that the work is definitively by Michelangelo, and dates to 1487-88, making Michelangelo only 12 or 13 when he completed it.

The NYTimes article presents an interesting mix of opinions from experts who've seen the work from museums and auction houses around the world.

In other news:

-There was another less-than-spectacular Sotheby's sale last night, bringing in only $47 million in total.

-The Eiffel Tower turns 120 years old tomorrow.

Art Links

Hey everyone! I'm back with your Art Links this beautiful Friday:

-Those Hitler paintings that were up at auction recently sold for a lot more than people thought they would, coming in at around $143,000.

-I wish I was able to go to London to see this show at the Tate Britain, Van Dyck and Britain.

-This Leonardo mystery sounds like a case for Dan Brown! Oh wait, Gary Radke's work for the show Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of Genius actually sounds like art history at its finest. Dan Brown could learn something.

-An interesting interview with graffiti artist Sixeart.

-Depressing news: the dire market for academics gets even more dire.

Art Links

-A new exhibition at the Met, Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400-1600, is a synthesis of beauty, unfamiliarity, and intimacy in what Holland Cotter says "could be the new norm" for the Met's exhibitions in the coming months/years.

The Asian art wing at the Met is consistently one of the least-crowded in the entire museum, so I'm glad there's an interesting exhibition to draw some attention to it.

-Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay is on at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The show argues for ceramics as a serious art form that combines elements of sculpture and painting, and questions the so-called "art-craft" divide.

-Old master paintings are still a better investment than buying contemporary art. "Old Masters are better than buying gold nuggets if you’re looking for something that will retain value,” where contemporary prices have fluctuated wildly in the last few months.

Art Links

-The controversial issue of the two Chinese bronze sculptures in the YSL sale has been further complicated by the Chinese buyer, Cai Mingchao, who won the two lots, but is now refusing to pay for them, insisting that they should be returned to China without charge.

-The Metropolitan Opera has put its Chagall murals up as part of the collateral on an existing loan, despite the large murals being "New York treasures."

-Evolutionary science, naturalism, and art are the focus of a new exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art. Just one example of the great niche shows that university art museums are so good at. Endless Forms is on through May 3rd.

-The Museum of Modern Art will unveil a total reconstruction of their official website on Friday. It sounds pretty cool, check back here Friday for my official review.

-Jeff Koons has been commissioned by LACMA to create a 25-million dollar sculpture of a life-size train dangling from a crane. I will withhold my judgment.

-Royalty checks become the focus for some art detective work.

Art Links

-The Met recently acquired Jacopo Bassano's last known work, "The Baptism of Christ," for their Renaissance collection, as well as a 16th century bronze oil lamp by sculptor Andrea Riccio.

-The only museum not firing people, but hiring them is the up and coming Hammer Museum, notable for its work on contemporary art, which gained a few new upper level curators recently.

-A harrowing tale of art theft, identity change, and "collecting" came to light after several stolen works were recovered a Las Vegas home. Tip: if you're going to steal art from galleries, it's probably not a good idea to then hang them up in your house.

Are university art museums taken for granted?

In light of the controversy stirred up over at Brandeis University, Holland Cotter writes a fantastic piece in today's New York Times that analyzes the integral role that small university art museums play in the larger world of "fabulous" art exhibitions at public institutions.

Cotter points out that though the exhibitions featured at university museums are not as glamorous as the big-budget shows at public museums, they often cover topics that would not be palatable to a general public audience. In doing so, they actually provide an important service to both the academic and artistic worlds.

I agree with Cotter on most of the article, but in my experience, university art museums are not often taken seriously as legitimate venues for important exhibitions, small as they might be. I was always impressed by the shows put on by my alma mater, NYU's Grey Art Gallery, which (true to form) always featured shows on obscure artists and topics. However, I was hard-pressed to find another art history major, let alone a student of another discipline who had been to the Grey. I'm curious to know what your experience has been with university museums? Do they matter? Are they given the credit that is due?

Art Links (and a Watermill!)

-China agrees to lend art from its National Palace Museum to Taiwan's National Palace Museum in Taipei next fall for an exhibition that will bring together a part of China's imperial collection. The disagreement between the two countries, whether or not China's claim to full ownership of the imperial collection is valid, will not be addressed.

-An interesting article in the Times about the flagging contemporary art market, a short history of the market's relationship to art schools, and an innovative (?) suggestion to open up the now very narrow curriculum in studio-based programs. Should art schools institute a more interdisciplinary approach? Would it change the landscape of the contemporary art market?

-Archaeologists are unearthing a 12th century watermill at Greenwich Wharf in England. Timbers are currently being excavated and sent in for conservation.

Art Links (and a Mummy!)

-A very insightful review from Roberta Smith of the new exhibition at Chicago's Art Institute, Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety and Myth. "I may not be creative, but at least I’m not crazy." (Van Gogh, I'm looking at you!)

-Greece's plan to unveil the new Acropolis museum, opening about 5 years behind schedule after disagreements with the British Museum and an impromptu excavation of artifacts from a large swath of early Christian Athens.

-German art happenings, featuring an exhibition of German expressionist works at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the clash of Western and non-Western art at Zurich's Museum Rietberg, and a collection of contemporary German art at Die Pinakothek in Munich.

-Buzz about the upcoming Yves Saint Laurent sale at Christie's Paris. I've taken a look at the copious catalogs that accompany this sale, and it's quite spectacular (Christie's provides complete eCatalogues online). Check out some of the sale highlights on the Christie's website. I'm partial to the Juan Gris cubist works and Fernand Leger's Composition, in the factory, 1918, though the sale will also include an impressive collection of Old Master paintings and decorative arts as well.

-Not quite art-related, but a new mummy from Luxor, Egypt underwent a high-tech CT scan without even having to be removed from her [rather beautifully painted] coffin. Science!

Fashion and Costumes: Current Shows at FIT

One my favorite things in life is fashion. Logically, it spills over into an academic interest in costume history, and in New York, one of the best places to go and learn about it is the Museum at FIT. FIT puts on creative, modern exhibitions and has lots of seminars, conferences, and lectures that are for the most part, open to the public.

Currently on (and ending February 21st!) is Dark Glamour, which looks at fashion's role in creating the Gothic aesthetic. It features some great clothes, creative display, and a fantastic illustrated catalog. The show is curated by Dr. Valerie Steele, who can always be counted on for an interesting fashion experience.

The new exhibition, on now until June 16, 2009 is Seduction, which "examines the complex relationship between seduction and clothing, presenting a visual history of sexuality, moral standards, and social norms–-all observed through the prism of fashion." I haven't yet been to see it, but if the show's website is any indication, I'll enjoy it immensely. This show features historical fashion as well as modern clothes, and traces changing attitudes toward the female body in connection with seduction and fashion. Colleen Hill curates.

This weekend, the Museum at FIT has a special symposium on "Subculture and Style," and having been to some of their programs in the past, the speakers and presentations are always quite good. Here's the info:

Fashion Symposium
Subculture and Style
Friday, February 13, and Saturday, February 14, 2009
Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Auditorium
Marvin Feldman Center (C building, 2nd floor)

In conjunction with the Gothic: Dark Glamour exhibition, the museum's seventh annual fashion symposium features designers, musicians, photographers, authors, and curators who will discuss fashion and subcultural style. Prices, registration, and speaker information are all available here.

Check out the museum's website for more information on location and opening hours, and some great online exhibitions for those of you not in New York!

The Louvre Tries Something Revolutionary?

Just happened upon this article about the Louvre's upcoming exhibition, "The Funeral of the Mona Lisa," which features the work of contemporary artist Yan Pei-Ming. The Louvre will hang Pei-Ming's version of the Mona Lisa, which features a gray Mona Lisa surrounded by skulls. Other works of Yan Pei-Ming's will also be hung in proximity to da Vinci's original.

The Louvre calls the exhibit "part of the Louvre's efforts to bring contemporary art face to face with the masterpieces of old." You might recall an installation of Jeff Koons's work at Versailles, which sparked quite a controversy. I'm surprised at the Louvre's willingness to probably incite outrage among traditionalists, and around what is probably the most famous painting in its collection. It is certainly not the fist time the Mona Lisa has been used as an inspiration for modern art, but putting what Yan Pei-Ming calls both an "homage and a funeral" for the Mona Lisa in such proximity to the original, inviting comparison, interpretation, analysis, and discussion of the Renaissance masterpiece as it relates to contemporary art practice is another thing altogether.

If any of you happen to be in Paris, at the Louvre, I'd love to know what the general reaction is to the exhibit. I'll keep my eyes peeled for further news, and be sure to post it here. My guess is that there will be an official protest, but that it certainly won't dampen the popularity of the Mona Lisa among regular tourist visitors.

Morning Art Links

- An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about contemporary artist Elizabeth Peyton's work. A retrospective of her portraits is moving to the Walter Art Center in Minneapolis (opens Feb. 14th), having just finished a run at the New Museum here in New York. I find Peyton's work to be some of the most interesting paintings that have been done in recent years, probably because she works in a traditional genre, but "reinvents" it in a way that appeals to modern audiences.


- Also in the Wall Street Journal, a snapshot of recent contemporary art auction results. The past few months have been some of the most tumultuous the major auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have experienced in recent memory, as both houses have had heavy job cuts, and disappointing sales all around. Highlights for the upcoming contemporary sale at Christie's this week include standbys like Koons, Murakami, and Bacon, though at somewhat more conservative estimates. Interesting that though the industry has suffered, impressionist and modern sales continue to perform respectably.

-An exhibition at the Walters Art Museum features nine manuscripts of the Old French poem, the Roman de la Rose, one of the most popular and influential texts of courtly love in the Middle Ages. The manuscripts are also displayed with some of the Walters' medieval ivories, many of which pick up on the same courtly love themes. What a great medieval Valentine's Day activity!


miniature from a manuscript of the
Roman de la Rose in the Bodleian Library